Lara's Gift (3 page)

Papa gave me a look—the one that said I’d better watch myself. “Nothing is ever wasted. Your training will come to good use—as nursemaid—when your mama gives birth.”

I glanced down at Zar in horror and mouthed,
Nursemaid!

Zar nudged my hand and leaned his long, thin body against me. His touch usually brought me comfort, but my rattled nerves spread, like weeds in an untended garden.

“What if Mama doesn’t give you a son?” I shouldn’t have said such a thing aloud. In Mama’s mind, just uttering the mere words could summon the evil house spirits, and take the baby away.

Papa quickly stood up and folded his arms across his chest. “Is that what you want?”

“Son or not—my place is with you and the dogs,” I said. “To one day support Alexander when he becomes Count.”

“Your place is with a husband,” Papa snapped. “How will I ever find you a good one smelling like a pack of dogs, even noble borzoi worthy of the Tsar?”

Papa’s words bit me like a rabid dog. He might have been thinking about my future. All I could think about was what a huge disappointment I must have been when I was born. No wonder Mama prayed at home and in the chapel as much as she did. She had failed Papa at her duty of bearing him a son.

“I know more about raising borzoi than I do about being a nursemaid.” My voice quavered, but I wouldn’t let myself quit. “I’ve cared for the dogs through distemper, tended to their wounds, administered their worming treatments, fed them proper diets, exercised them, whelped litters, and managed their mating, as well as anyone, even Alexander.” I paused and caught my breath. Like me, Alexander adored the dogs. So much so, he deemed no kennel chore—not even shoveling dog dung—beneath his noble title.

“And most of all,” I added, “the dogs listen to me.”

I climbed onto the bench just underneath Papa’s horn and pointed to the scroll upon which the Eight Golden Rules were inscribed. “Don’t forget, I live by these Rules, too.” Although I couldn’t read, my memory was as sharp as the tip of a sickle. I pointed at the scroll, met Papa’s eyes, and recited each Rule aloud.

Except for the unspoken Rule.

Golden Rule Number Eight was kept a secret among kennel stewards.

I had tried many times to pry it out of Papa but with little luck.

When I was done reciting the Rules, a half smile emerged on Papa’s face. “Your spunk reminds me of me when I was your age.”

“
Please, Tyatya
. I don’t want a husband.” I hopped down from the bench. “The only thing that matters to me is you, the dogs, and one day becoming the best kennel steward for Alexander.”

Zar’s feet danced as he circled around me.

“To breed true hunting dogs, you need hunting expertise, of which you don’t have.” Papa scooped a dollop of herbal balm and rubbed it into Borei’s pads.

“Mama said you could teach me to hunt when I turned fourteen,” I said.

“That’s her promise, not mine.” Papa pushed the wisps of hair off my face. “You need to learn some other skills—skills that will help me find you a husband.”

Papa was right about one thing. I wouldn’t make a very good kennel steward without hunting experience.

Sure, I’d hunted hare and other small animals with Zar, but nothing as big as a wolf. And really, what had I contributed? Zar had done all the work. And watching
the younger borzoi train on muzzled wolves our hunters had caught, caged, and brought back alive to practice on—well, that couldn’t be called
real
hunting, either. That was a mock hunt in enclosed pens, protected behind tall fences, with teams of borzoi and knives at the ready. What kind of skill lies in that?

None.

To breed borzoi worthy of His Majesty Tsar Nicholas, I would need to go on a
real
wolf hunt. But even that wouldn’t be enough for Papa. To prove myself to him—and I shuddered at the thought—I would need to kill a wolf.

I had never killed a living thing before.

And wasn’t even sure I could.

But I had to try.

With my shoulders back, my chin up, and Zar at my side, I harnessed my most serious, grown-up voice. “
Tyatya
, now that I’m fourteen, take me on a wolf hunt. Teach me what I need to know.”

Zar pawed at my leg and goosed me with his long snout. “Zar’s ready, too.”

“Hunting’s a man’s world.” Papa extended an outstretched arm over Borei, Bistri, and Sila. “With fine, fast, powerful dogs like these three.”

“Zar’s likely to be just as fine, if given the chance,” I said. “Don’t forget that Borei, Bistri, and Sila are his littermates.”

Papa shook his head. “Look at him! Zar is and will always be just a runt.”

At the mention of his name, Zar gazed up at Papa with trusting eyes.

“Zar might be small, but he compensates for it in quickness, agility, and tenacity,” I said in Zar’s defense. “You should see him zigzag after the wiliest of hares and pluck them from the air in mid-flight.”

“Hares are one thing,” Papa said. “Wolves are something different.”

“Then train him. He deserves a chance,” I said.

“Nyet,”
Papa said firmly.

“But—”

“Don’t argue with me. Zar’s no more suited to hunt than you are.” And then he added, “Who hunts and who doesn’t is a Golden Rule we must follow.”

“There’s no such Rule,
Tyatya
.” And then it dawned on me. Had Papa let the secret behind Golden Rule Number Eight slip?

“There is now.” Papa raised one finger high in the air, as if he were the Tsar. “By the power vested in me by my forefathers, I hereby declare—Golden Rule Number Nine: Hunting’s a man’s sport.”

“If Catherine the Great—Empress of all Russia—could hunt, surely a young, hardy peasant girl like me could hunt, too!”

Papa’s bushy brows bunched up. He handed me a basket
and a small knife. “The only hunting you’ll get to do is for mushrooms. Now hurry along.”

Before Papa could impose another Rule, I obeyed, like a well-trained dog, and took the basket from him—wishing I could add my own Rules.

I’d make one that made sense.

Still, I carried a thread of hope—what if Mama gave birth to a baby girl?

Papa would have to bend, right?

I could hardly call Papa’s order a hardship. The thought of fresh, meaty mushrooms, cooked in butter with onions, smothered in sour cream, made it all worthwhile. After last night’s rain, mushrooms would be popping up all over the forest.

“Davai!”
Zar and I headed through the main animal hospital that connected the dog kennel to the horse stable, through a long brick building, where the Count housed a fine collection of horses. Like each borzoi, every Orlov Trotter was assigned two trainers and a special team of animal doctors—well, except Zar. All he got was me.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry so early in the morning?” Alexei asked. Just like his Trotters, the Count’s stable steward had a mane of long, thick, gray-white hair, and was equally important to the Count as Papa was on the estate.

“Hunting for mushrooms,” I answered, trying to make it sound more significant than it actually was.

“Fetch me a good horse for Lara,” Alexei said to one of his stable hands.

He chose an old dappled mare with a sagging back nicknamed Babushka because of all the foals and fillies she had mothered. “She may be old, but she’s sure-footed and doesn’t spook easily,” the stable hand said.

Like a horse who’s made the trip a hundred times, Babushka trotted by the racetrack and show ring, past the greenhouses flourishing with lemons, berries, and rare roses, and past the shallow ponds that cascaded down to the river, then through the fields in the direction of the forest of aspens, spruces, and birches. As Zar followed, loping, by our side, I inhaled deep breaths of the last bits of crisp, cool autumn air, for the harsh winter months would soon be upon us. The autumn landscape of purplish golds reminded me of Mama’s favorite poem by Pushkin. His words hummed in my head:

Babushka stopped under the shady recess of a cluster of tall birch trees sprinkled among spruces. She pulled the reins free from my hands and started to graze.

“This spot looks good.” I dismounted and began my search for a sturdy, long stick. When I stooped down to pick up a spruce branch, I met Zar’s kind, dark eyes, peering down at me across his long nose. In a squatted position, Zar towered over me and made me feel more like his pup than his guardian.

“How’s this stick, boy?”

After Zar licked my face in approval, I ran my fingers, squeezing them along the rough edge of the branch, until the dried-up spruce needles sprang off like little arrows. Zar’s ears perked upright. Anything that moved caught his attention.

“Such a true sight hound,” I said to him. “If only Papa would notice.”

Under my care, Zar had grown to be much taller than anyone had expected for a runt, and was big on heart. His most endearing quality was his loyalty—to me, for he slept under my bench near the stove at night and helped me with kennel chores during the day. Somehow I suspected he understood what his fate might have been, for he
never
left my side, unless he was chasing a hare.

Despite my endless begging, Papa never took Zar on a wolf hunt. “Zar would be as useful out on a hunt as Countess Vorontsova’s lapdog,” Papa liked to tell me whenever I brought it up.

His response always planted me right back in that very first vision of Zar standing over a dead wolf of silvery-red-tipped
color—a vision that had not yet come true. A vision that gnawed at me—like a dog chewing on a meatless bone.

Papa refused to validate any of the hare Zar had caught over the years. “Luck,” Papa had called it. But I knew it wasn’t luck.

While I poked and prodded the rich earth with my stick through the damp moss and rotting leaves, Zar patiently watched. When I found the first meaty, dark-capped mushroom with a plump, creamy-white leg, I cut it at its base and held it high for Zar to see. And even though borzoi are sight hounds and hunt based on their keen eyesight, I let him sniff it. “Go find some more, boy.”

With his nose to the ground, Zar moved through the wet undergrowth in search of mushrooms.

Suddenly the back of my eyelids started to twinge.

Oh, no! Not another vision.

Although I had tried to get rid of my visions, as Papa had insisted, they still managed to find a way into my head. In the beginning, they had come to me infrequently, never with warning, and always connected to the borzoi. The older I got, the more frequently they came. The dark ones were the ones I feared most and tried to purge from my thoughts, lying to myself that nothing bad would happen if I just ignored them.

But my visions always came true—except for the first one.

Countless times I had watched bad things happen when I could have done something to prevent them. I had started to question if I could sit still and do nothing.

Until we lost Zanoza, Zar’s sister.

Because of the hunting success Papa had with Borei, Bistri, and Sila, he was eager to train their littermate Zanoza with one of the wolves he had caught and penned for such purposes. Papa was convinced Zanoza would be a star. The night before she was scheduled to go in a wolf pen, I had a vision of a wolf ripping her throat open. Like the sweet little lamb she was, she never fought back.

The next day when my vision came true, I rushed out of the training ring, sick as I’d never been, and threw up in an empty stall.

I swore I would never let anything bad happen again and that was when I decided to act on my visions—without Papa finding out.

To think I could have saved Zanoza had I spoken.

I might have failed Papa many times for not preventing my visions.

But I never once broke my promise to him, for I learned to keep them to myself.

The twinge grew more painful, beating along my
forehead, like pelting ice flakes. I closed my eyes, afraid of what might come.

And there was Zar.

He stood on his hind legs—battling a large silvery-red-tipped wolf with yellow eyes.

Gospodi!

I willed myself to see more. I had to know that Zar would be all right.

Like all the other visions I had had over the years, it disappeared as quickly as it had come and it left me shaking.

I searched into the distance across the open fields and found nothing alarming. So why did my gut still feel wrenched up in a knot?

I quickly glanced over at Zar, under the tall birches, nosing the ground for mushrooms, and then at Babushka grazing peacefully under a cloudless blue sky. The quiet alone could have swallowed us whole and the air felt empty, like the last bits of summer had been swept away with a broom.

Part of me willed it to be just that—another lazy autumn morning. I wasn’t ready to take on a wolf. Not this wolf, at least. He was much bigger than Zar, and the way he lunged for Zar’s neck with snapping jaws frightened me.

Zar pawed at my leg. In his mouth he held a mushroom gingerly between his front teeth.

“Molodietz!”
I took the mushroom and dropped his prize in the basket.

He brought another, and then another.

“I’ll never keep up.” For every mushroom I collected, he found three, and he knew how to pick the good ones. Never once did he bring me a poisonous one.